By Cynthia Jessup
You’re having breakfast and reviewing what tasks need to be accomplished for the day and you get stumped at, “What’s for lunch?” It’s difficult to plan for the next meal when you are eating one currently. Time is short, and you can’t decide.
Loudoun County Public Schools not only serve balanced lunches, but they also incorporate satisfaction surveys to gather student opinions and create a positive lunch experience. In these surveys, they use emojis because studies have shown that emojis transcend language barriers and let students easily express opinions, especially if English is not the student’s first language.
According to Stefanie Dove, nutrition marketing coordinator of Loudoun County Public Schools, “students from primary and secondary schools participate in taste parties to evaluate potential additions to the lunch menu for the upcoming school year.”
At these taste parties, vendors bring in about a half dozen items for sampling, and the school principals choose students to participate. The vendors then prepare the items, and the school nutrition staff serves the items along with an evaluation form. Students rate the items, and the most favorable items end up on menus. “So if we were testing pizza, we would tell potential vendors what we’re looking for, and all the pizzas brought in for the test would have similar, but not identical, profiles,” says Dr. Becky Bays, school nutrition services supervisor of LCPS. “We also blind test school-made items against a preprepared item sometimes. All the tests are blind, so students do not know brand.”
So how healthy are the menu options? “The school nutrition office prescreens products for nutrition profile cost, allergens, etc. to ensure the food item could potentially be on a menu,” Bays says. The school nutrition services strive to meet standards of the USDA.
LCPS also considers diversity in the schools. “We are very mindful of preferences,” Dove says. “We offer vegetarian options and are mindful of how much pork and other meats [are] served. In middle and high schools we just introduced a self-serve fruits and vegetables bar so students can get as many servings of fruits and vegetables as they want daily.”
